I’m unsure,Oberi responded.Perhaps before, I might’ve pretended to know the answers. But all my millennia of living cannot grasp, fathom, nor accept that Charlie has become this, or that his actions are going to ruin the lives of millions.
“If this can happen to Charlie, and the world can make him into a monster like this, it can happen to anybody,” I insisted. “He’ll be worse than the Warden. He’ll be more ruthless. Iknowhe can be.”
I took Oberi’s furry face in my hands. “And then what’ll I be? His pretty pigeon that he takes out of a gilded cage whenever he wants to play with me? He’ll ruffle my feathers every now and then, but he’llneverlet me out long enough for me to spread my wings. Since the start, he’s called me his little bird, and that’sexactlywhat he’s gonna make me into. I’m merely his pet, a sacrificial lamb he’s willing to slaughter for his enjoyment. He’s willing to bargain my freedom to get what he desires. Then what’ll happen to you, huh?”
Oberi’s big black eyes got sadder.I will be his weapon, as he desires to use me as one. I am too powerful to be kept in a cage, and unlike you, I cannot die. Since he cannot lose me, I will become an asset, a tool of war against his enemies.
“So you understand. This is the only way. It’ll be beautiful. Glorious, even.”
If he is capable of imprisoning you and taking away your freedom, as I did not think he would be, then he is capable of anything,Oberi said.He is something we must protect the world from.
“But can we protect it by ending it.” It wasn’t even a question, really. More of… asking permission.
There are far worse things than death, and this world has been left scarred by people like him. We cannot allow this to go on any longer,Oberi said firmly.This cycle of suffering and purposeless pain needs to be drawn to a close. Whatever you decide, I will support you, and be behind you all the way.
Clearly, he wasn’t going to convince me otherwise, and I didn’t want him to. “Do you really think this is the right decision?”
I cannot say,Oberi mused.All I can say is that I love you, and trust you. If this is your choice as the prophecy says, then I am bound to your fate. May it be that something good comes out of this after all.
“I think so. After all, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, save by demigods. If I destroy the Earth and the afterlife, all that energy has to gosomewhere, so it’ll recreate the universe and start everything over… give life a better chance. It’ll be like the big bang, all over again from the beginning of creation, exceptI’llbe the one creating the universe this time. If I sacrifice myself and everyone else, it could create a better world. An ideal world, one without all this hate.”
It could,Oberi offered.Or it could bring about a new universe full of calamity. Are you willing to risk that?
I took a moment to really consider what I was contemplating. I thought about all the wars in the world, how they destroyed people’s lives and ruined families. I thought about Kallie, what the Dollmaker had done to her, and all the girls in the future who would become victims to evil men. I thought about all those poor souls in the camps, and how cruelly they’d been treated before their miserable end. Nothing like that should ever be permissible, yet genocides similar to it had happened time and again throughout history, and they would continue to persist if something wasn’t done.
Then I thought about all the vile, evil monsters who’d done all those awful things to innocents who didn’t deserve it. Even if we killed the Warden, or convinced Charlie to stand down, another creature just as cruel as them would come in to take their place. And I figured if all those terrible things could happen in the world, it wasn’t worth sparing anyway. I needed to protect others from enduring horrible things, even if protecting them meant ending their existence. I couldn’t allow the afterlife to go on— the circle of reincarnation would just keep going, souls would find another plane of reality to return to, and the cycle would start up all over again.
No… if I was destroying everything, I was destroying itall.
No one would know if everything faded. They wouldn’t have any comprehension of it, because they’d be gone. I would be, too. I could wipe out the entirety of suffering forever, for all of life in one single stroke. I had one thing the other demigods didn't. My demigod magic gave me a connection to the Earth, and I could break her spirit. Once that happened, nothing could stop this realm from breaking at the seams, sending a ripple of chaos through the other realms and destroying them all entirely.
It was all I ever desired, to stop the suffering of others forever, but I never thought it would end up like this.
But either way… if I did this, I’d finally get what I wanted.
Emperor Cassiel was right. Someone would always have to pay the price to end suffering. This time, it would be us all.
“I’ll risk whatever it takes to make sure something like what happened in the camps never happens again,” I promised Oberi. I landed on a decision.
There was still a small, bitter part of me that protested. A part that said this wasn’t the only way and we’d find another solution, if I only gave it a chance.
I detested that Ava. She was weak— she still wanted toplay the hero.She was desperate to save the world and all thepeople in it. She wanted to act like she was good inside, just misunderstood, when that really wasn’t the case at all. She did everything she could to belong and gave away parts of who she was to try and fit the mold of the people around her, because achieving the status quo meant she’d finally be accepted for who she was. She was a girl that begged for scraps of love because she didn’t feel like she deserved it, a girl who thought in black-and-white and only saw the world in one way. Right was right and wrong was wrong, to her. Things were simple and straightforward, and bad people deserved to be punished just as good people deserved to be rewarded.
That was a ridiculous concept. I wasn’t a good person. I didn’t know how long it was going to take for me to accept that. On top of it, I didn’t want to be. Good people got used and mistreated. I was always going to be an outcast, and I was never going to be accepted for the person I was born to be. I was sick of carving parts out of my heart in order to fit into a role that wasn’t mine. I knew the world wasn’t black and white, and that everyone had good and evil inside of them. It only depended on what parts people chose to show. In this world we lived in now,no onewas a hero. Punishments and rewards weren’t given out depending on a person’s actions, but by chance… and by people deciding what they deserved and taking it for themselves, despite any morals that might say otherwise.
I wasn’t a hero. And I was tired of trying to play the part. There was a dagger inside of me that had been plunged into my back long ago by all thegood peopleof the world, a dagger that cut deep and said that I’d never belong.
You know what? I loved that dagger. It made me who I was, and I was sick of trying to pull it out. If I didn’t belong, I was more than happy with that. I’d bleed on all the fuckers who dared to get in my way. I didn’t need anyone to love me butmyself, and whatever decisions I made would be the right ones. There was no need to second guess myself anymore.
From deep inside myself, I summoned my Spirit magic. I put my hand on Oberi’s chest, then lifted my fingers upward to project my soul out.
A piece of myself, a part of the spirit that I shared with Charlie, materialized out of Oberi’s heart. She took form, hovering before me. She looked like me, had identical features and a cold smile, but she appeared younger.
And she stood, looming over me tall on two legs. This was the person I’d been before the Infernal Underground, and I’d still been holding on to her. I hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been clinging to me. This was the person that had been formed from all my parents’ stories, the hero that I’d dreamed someday I might be. If I was to do what needed to be done, she couldn’t be a part of me anymore.
I couldn’t show any mercy. I needed to kill her. She was hurting me and holding me back from everything I had the potential to become. I was burying her today, and turning her to ash.
The good girl I’d tried to be stared back with merciless eyes. “You can’t kill me. You need me.”
